There is an old Japanese proverb that basically states that if you think you are safe, you are in danger and if you think you are in danger, you are safe.
In other words, feeling safe fosters complacency and blinds people to threats while constant vigilance and low-grade anxiety about peril on the way are the best tools for keeping harm at bay.
Life's contradictions and subtleties are just too much for the Oval Office Oaf, as he proved once again over the weekend, in the wake of the terrorist attack at London Bridge.
Most people respond to a friend's tragedy by offering support and assistance.
U.S. President Donald Trump responded in typical moronic fashion.
Trump took to Twitter early Sunday to promote his Muslim travel ban and then to attack the mayor of London for telling residents not to be alarmed.
Of course, that's not what Shadiq Khan said but it seems that when any Muslim man speaks, Trump just hears terror. What Mayor Khan actually told Londoners was to not be alarmed by the increased police presence on city streets in the wake of the attacks.
The Pennsylvania Avenue prat wasn't finished, of course. On Monday morning, Foghorn Leghorn was back at it again, calling Khan's original statement a "pathetic excuse" and then saying mainstream media were working hard to spin it.
No, you nincompoop, we were reporting what Khan actually said, not what you thought he said because you have the attention span of a gnat.
Americans are appalled by their president, of course.
If you think the previous words are harsh, here's Jennifer Rubin, a conservative commentator, writing in The Washington Post: "Civilization is not going to be driven out of Britain by three or three hundred killers. Meanwhile - and it pains me to write this - our president acted like a clod, a heartless and dull-witted thug in sending out a series of tweets."
She went to characterize Trump as "impulsive and cruel, without an ounce of class or human decency."
Trump's lunacy overshadowed the incredible British response to the attack, from the pub patrons who threw chairs and beer glasses at the attackers, the fellow who returned the next day to settle his bar tab and the rapid response of British police, who shot and killed all three terrorists within eight minutes after the attack started.
That's about how long it would have taken the Dingbat-in-Chief to find the TV remote to tune into Fox News to find out what was happening.
The Brits, of course, have far too much spine to be shaken by attacks from terrorists or Trump.
The One Love Manchester show, featuring American pop star Ariana Grande, still went ahead Sunday to pay tribute to the bombing victims at her arena show there last month.
Like most citizens in most countries of the world, the Brits soldier on, waiting for the next attack.
That is not a fatalist view that nothing can be done to stop deranged people from killing in the name of some ridiculous cause or just for their own sadistic pleasure.
Rather, it is the view of mature, sensible adults that realize that not every bad person can be stopped in advance from doing bad things every time.
In his book Foolproof: How Safety Can Be Dangerous and How Danger Makes Us Safe, Greg Ip explains how everything from football helmets to river levees has had the unintended consequence of fostering additional risky behaviour, creating new danger and even worse outcomes.
Terrorist attacks, like any crime, can be compared to forest fires, which Ip explores in detail in his book.
When everyone is engaged in both preventing forest fires (by putting out campfires and not throwing cigarettes out of their car windows) and reducing the size and the amount of damage caused by the fires that do occur (clearing brush and deadwood from rural properties), everyone is made safer from the increased precaution.
Public anxiety is diminished because there is a community effort being made to keep everyone safer.
When someone like Trump says it's his job to keep the public safe, what he really means is he'll keep everyone safe by suspending their civil liberties and personal freedoms, spy on them and increase his ability to act without oversight. When people fully abdicate to government their personal responsibility towards ensuring their own safety, they are just spreading the seeds of tyranny.
There is no winning the war on terror, just like there is no stopping all forest fires.
When prevention fails, as it inevitably will, the task is to stop the senseless destruction as soon as possible.
There is another old Japanese proverb that the British understand well - fall down seven times, stand up eight.
Sadly, that kind of maturity and leadership is missing in America's highest office.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
